Is it time to buy Bitcoin? Google’s data on Bitcoin searches

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Last week our theme was “Top 7 Crypto Exchanges for IEOs“. Our theme for this week is “”

TLDR. Search data is a great way to track the growth of active Bitcoin and cryptocurrency users. Search is a great indicator of what people are interested in. Engagement levels are red hot, with crypto investors checking the daily price of of their precious coin. Data from Google Trends shows search interest for Bitcoin hit a 14-month high. This data confirms studies that suggest there’s a correlation between Bitcoin’s price movements and search interest for it. For Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchain looking at the search data for different geographies, we can examine the entire ecosystem in new and interesting ways.

Bitcoin has been hovering around $8,000. The CBS 60 Minutes segment, “Bitcoin’s Wild Ride,” which aired last week was very positive for Bitcoin.

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Bitcoin’s price movement has been getting more and more people to search for it. There seems to be a real connection between people searching Bitcoin on Google and actual investment in the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price can be predicted based on the number of Google searches for it, because the latter precedes the former, making Google search a key indicator for Bitcoin trading.

Back in  2017, search engine marketing firm SEMRush found that Bitcoin’s price had a 91% correlation with Google searches for it.

Google trends also shows us the geographic origin of Bitcoin searches, with countries in Africa and Europe ranking in the top 10:

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  1. Nigeria
  2. South Africa
  3. Ghana
  4. St. Helena
  5. Netherlands
  6. Austria
  7. Switzerland
  8. Singapore
  9. Slovenia
  10. Australia
  1. Germany
  2. Venezuela
  3. Canada
  4. Malaysia
  5. Ireland
  6. United Arab Emirates
  7. Pakistan
  8. United States
  9. United Kingdom
  10. New Zealand

Beyond prices, Google searches also indicate the pulse of an entire geographic region for crypto. Using Google Trends we have tried to uncover the interest for the top two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, overall for Cryptocurrencies and for Blockchain technology, performing searches for “Bitcoin”, “Ethereum”, “Blockchain” and “Cryptocurrency”.

Its no surprise that countries like Japan, South Korea, China and Russia lead the world in interest for “Blockchain”. They are building solutions to harness the power of decentralization and stand at the forefront of developing blockchain technologies.

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In most western countries like the United States, the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, Bitcoin dominates user searches.

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In South America, Venezuela presents an interesting case. With its unstable political situation and economy, “Bitcoin” is the top query with 75% of the results.

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There is an incredible amount of information one can obtain from Google’s Trends. But Google search data is not the only source. There have been studies showing  the correlation between Twitter posts and Wikipedia article views to Bitcoin’s price.

No matter how you look at it, the relationship between public interest and price is undeniable. It indicates that people are interested in buying Bitcoin. It is FOMO materialized in numbers and coincides with Bitcoin’s famous, or perhaps infamously wild market cycles.

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Ilias Louis Hatzis is the Founder & CEO at Mercato Blockchain Corporation AG.

He writes the Blockchain Weekly Front Page each Monday.I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.

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